Face to Face

The exhibition *Faces à face* brings together the models who appear in works created in Valais by Ernest Biéler (1863–1948), Germaine Boy (1884–1971), Raphy Dallèves (1878–1940), Anna Dubuis (1878–1929), Fred Fay (1901–1987), Henry van Muyden (1860–1936), Édouard Vallet (1876–1929), and Marguerite Vallet-Gilliard (1888–1918) around 1900.By embracing the historical genre of portraiture within a context that deliberately celebrates rural life, these eight artists—who were active within the Savièse School from 1885 through the 1930s—created works inspired by the canton’s residents. Who were these women and men of Valais whose gaze, occupation, pose, social role, or clothing choices were eternally captured by the artist’s hand? Is it possible to identify these individuals, to recognize their faces, or have the clues been deliberately obscured? By revealing some of the connections that existed between the artists and their subjects, *Faces à face* explores the special and intimate moment of creating a portrait—born of the artists’ gaze upon their subjects—navigating the balance between the anonymization of individual identities and the celebration of their symbolic significance.

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